Economic Analysis of the University

Aннотация:
This course seeks to illustrate the complexity of decision making in a nonprofit
organization and to show how microeconomic analysis in general, and labor market
analysis in particular, can be usefully applied to analyze resource allocation decisions
in universities. It also discusses why actual decision-making at universities may
often appear to ignore economic forces.

Introduction: The American Higher Education System. The Quest for Prestige
and Why Private Universities Can't Hold Down Their Costs. Who Runs the
University? The Scope of Budgetary Issues.

Endowment, Investment and Spending Policies: The Decisions to Spend or Save
and How to Invest. Socially Responsible Policies: The Cost of Development.

The Quest for Prestige and How it Influences University Behavior:
Undergraduate, Professional, and Doctoral Programs.

Faculty Compensation and Employment: How Much Is Enough? The Tenure
System and Lifetime Contracts. Are Full Professors Overpaid? Reacting to the
End of Mandatory Retirement. The Growth of Non Tenure Track Faculty

Faculty Compensation: Equity and Efficiency Within and Across Departments:
Does Productivity Matter and How Can We Measure It? The Problem with
Comparable Worth

Doctoral Education: Ph.D. Students as Inputs and Outputs. The Length of Ph.D.
Programs and Universities' Responses to Changing Federal Support. The Changing
Demographics of Doctoral Students, Collective Bargaining for Graduate Assistants

Resource Allocation Across and Within Colleges and Departments: Who Gets
What and Does What. The Role of Internal Transfer Prices. The Role of Student
Fees